John Munch contemplates the actions he took after Gordon Pratt shot three of his squad mates. Did Munch then murder Pratt? If he did, could anyone prove it, even his colleagues of Baltimore PD's Homicide unit?

I carry a
nine-millimeter Glock, a matte black piece that protects me from
Charm City and protects Baltimore at large from perps of all sizes
and descriptions. Sometimes, my sidearm has more to do than simply
rest against me in its holster. There are times when it is an
instrument of revenge. Improbable, unproven, blissfully sweet
retribution doled out by a career cop with a concealed carry and a
quiet taste for vengeance.

He tried to take it all
away from me that day. My friends, my family, my job…my life.

We put on our vests and
walked toward the apartment building, silently confident the bust
would go like most others. We knew it could have its hazards, which
was why we wore Kevlar, but we didn't count on ordnance that would
slice through. Our mistake.

A bigger mistake was in
letting Kay Howard go through the door first, even though she
wouldn't have had it any other way. We followed her up the stairs,
straight into Hell as Gordon Pratt released a volley of shots that
cut through vests and flesh with blood in their wake. Officers down,
all three of my colleagues, and yet I hadn't caught a single
bullet. Nor could I get a shot off in the ensuing chaos, much to my
regret.

Lives were changed that
day, and not for the better.

Kay Howard lost what
little bit of naiveté she had harbored, turning into a more
skeptical person than I remembered. A hole in her heart had drained
more from her than merely blood. It had drained the last reserves of
her essence, that spark of humanity, which kept her from becoming as
cynical as myself. She returned to the murder police a changed woman,
and I ached for who she had been.

In the days after the
shooting, I spent copious hours at my partner's hospital bedside,
watching in confused fright with his ex-wife, as he coded before my
very eyes. Only the quick response of the medical staff, and
subsequent surgery, saved his life. A hole in his stubborn brain, a
ragged semi-circular scar that reminded us all how close we'd come
to losing one of our own. Stanley was never the same after that
experience, changed from the jovial 'Big Man' into a sarcastic,
ever-skeptical cop, jaded more than even I was at that point. It hurt
me to see him change.

Beau Felton was the
exception to the rule, not really metamorphosing into anything less
than what he was before: a lazy, self-indulgent cop, who had no real
future in the BPD. Perhaps the experience left him a bit more
thoughtful, unfortunately those thoughts were limited to himself and
how he viewed each situation. Everything managed to roll off Felton
like the proverbial water off a duck's back.

And where did all of
this leave me? I'll tell you where – sitting on a bus bench
outside an apartment building, biding my time. When the situation
requires, I have all the patience anyone could ever need. This was
one of those times. I sat, waiting…simply waiting, patiently
observing. An hour passed, then two. At the top of the third hour, he
came home. My target. Soon to be a victim of the same violent crime
he had inflicted upon my squad mates.

I slipped from my watch
point and followed him inside, quickly drawing my gun without so much
as a sound. He heard my footsteps, or perhaps sensed them, and
turned. His eyes widened in raw fear as he saw my Glock pointed
directly at him. When he heard the muffled rapport, he saw my wry
grin in the instant before he fell. Dead.

How did it feel to take
his life? It felt good, oddly enough. It seemed…right, somehow.

Four lives vindicated
in the moment my nine-mill round left the barrel and settled in his
head. Oh, sure, I knew there would be hell to pay later on, after
they'd decided maybe someone should investigate. But I didn't
care. There were thousands of virtually identical Glocks being
carried by uniforms and detectives alike, and the same gunsmith had
honed almost perfectly matching patterns in the barrels of each one.
Ballistics would never be able to tell the difference, leaving this
as the perfect crime.

My patience had paid
off at the bedside of each of my colleagues, just as it rewarded me
while staking out Gordon Pratt. As I squeezed the five and a half
pounds of pressure against the trigger, I felt nothing but vengeance
coursing through my veins. I pumped a single shot into the man who
tried to kill me, a slug propelled by gunpowder into the piece of
detritus who wanted me and my fellow detectives dead in the hallway
of a squalid apartment building.

As Pratt's visage
stared into space, with its expression of shock and surprise, I felt
a strange sense of relief flood over me.

I knew this day would
come. Because I had all the patience in the world.

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